Tie-Dye Tycoon: Carlee Shreve, International Business '22
Carlee displays one of her fan-favorite products.
International Business major and first-year Carlee Shreve has more on her plate than the average eighteen-year-old. In addition to schoolwork and Chatham swim meets, Carlee is the owner and artistic mind behind Trippy Tees and More, where she creates a wide array of tie-dyed cotton products to sell at craft fairs across Pennsylvania. Carlee’s hard work caught the attention of Pittsburgh’s largest independent craft fair, Handmade Arcade, a seasonal showcase of unique, hand-made products, which awarded her a 2019 Youth Makers Scholarship.
"When looking at the Youth Maker applicants, Carlee's colorful tie-dye clothing caught my eye right away. Her drive to use this opportunity to learn from Pittsburgh's art, craft and maker community is remarkable,” said Tricia Brancolini-Foley ‘96, a Chatham alumna and Executive Director of Handmade Arcade.
Last April, while still in high school in Connellsville, PA, Carlee was on the hunt for larger craft shows for her work. That’s when she stumbled across the Youth Maker Scholarship and applied. Fast forward to Fall 2019, just as Carlee was getting ready to move into Chatham:
“I got an email [about getting the scholarship] and I was like, ‘What the heck is this?’ I completely forgot. I didn’t want to tell my parents because they’d be like, ‘You can’t do this! You have too much going on.’”
Luckily, Carlee’s family has been supportive of her ever-expanding to-do list—her parents have lent their attic as the workshop for her Trippy Tees and her brother helped her to build a clothing rack out of galvanized pipe. Carlee’s scholarship provides a $200 stipend for any artistic materials she needs for Handmade Arcade, a free vendor space for the two-day event, and a maker-mentor to help her prepare. Carrie Robertson, owner of Hip Modern Soap and a veteran of Handmade Arcade, provided Carlee with advice on setting prices, making a profit, and tweaking things for improvement. “She is very personable and intuitive. I was impressed with her ability to ask genuine questions and recognize not only what she knows, but what she needed to learn,” said Carrie of her experience mentoring Carlee.
And because of Carlee’s vast repertoire, there is ample opportunity for growth: “I do short sleeves, long sleeves, hoodies, and sweatshirts. I’ve done pants, shoes, tapestries, blankets, towels, onesies, bandanas, and bags. Honestly, I’ll tie-dye anything I can get my hands on,” she says of her work. As for the initial urge to make technicolor masterpieces? It all started at a friend’s house in eighth grade…
“My friend and I made these really crappy t-shirts with a tie-dye kit. When I went home, I said, ‘Mom, can we go to Wal-Mart?’ I bought a kit and from that point on it was a growing experiment.” Now, with several years of tie-dyeing under her belt, Carlee knows what customers want: “Long sleeve t-shirts, hoodies, and crew-necks. In their size!” She walks us through her tie-dye routine from start to finish with commentary:
Wash [the shirt/sweatshirt/bandana, etc.] out with a synthrapol detergent—expensive at $26/gallon 😨—to get out any oils or unnecessary dyes.
Leave it damp and soak it in a soda ash mixture for about an hour.
Lay it on a flat surface. Pinch it in the middle and start twisting until it makes a big round circle, like pie 🥧
Bunch together as tight as possible and band it with rubber bands. I usually use three.
Now dye it. Dye goes a very long way—it's super permanent. I try not to let the dyes mix with each other unless I want to make a middle color.
Let it sit for 48 hours.
*48 Hours Later* Cut the bands off, rinse with cold water, and wring it out. Submerge it in cold water and wring it out again.
Finally, wash it with the synthrapol detergent again to get all the excess dye out. Once it's washed with this detergent, it will never leak color again. I don’t like dryers, so everything I do is air dried. It’s at least a two-day process.
With a burgeoning business and an international business degree in the works, it may seem like Carlee has a master plan, but she isn’t worried about what comes next: “I’m just a person that does what she is doing in the moment and that’s how it is. There are so many things in life to stress about, I can’t stress about the future. I have to do what I’m doing now, first.”
Be sure to swing by Handmade Arcade on Friday, December 6 or Saturday, December 7 to visit Carlee’s Trippy Tees and More booth in the Youth Maker Alley and check out products from makers all around the country.
